‘CANDYMAN’ BUILDS ON THE TERROR
Skyscrapers loom upside down out of the fog, drifting by from an odd perspective, as if from the point of view of someone on a gurney, or perhaps a spectral presence regarding these buildings occupying land that’s been stolen, developed, appropriated, allocated, gentrified and redeveloped again.
This is the Chicago of Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman,” a reboot/sequel to the 1992 horror film directed by Bernard Rose. DaCosta’s film builds upon the horrors imagined by the original, which introduced the terrifying imagery of a man with a hook, surrounded by bees, a monster forged in racist violence.
DaCosta, who made her directorial debut with the remarkable abortion drama “Little Woods,” firmly announces herself as an artist at work with “Candyman,” a genuinely terrifying and artful horror film that speaks with a bell-clear voice to the current moment. While the original centered on a white woman, in this story of the horrors of the African American experience, DaCosta’s film centers on a Black man, an artist named Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). In “Candyman,” a Black man occupies the space of both the villain and the victim, sliding between persecuted and monstrous identities; horror tropes as social commentary.
This “Candyman” functions best as sequel, with the story of the original film acting as the inciting myth, the urban legend of the grad student who went to the hood to learn about Candyman (rendered spookily with puppet silhouettes). It’s relayed by Troy (Nathan StewartJarrett) to his sister Brianna (Teyonah Parris) and her boyfriend Anthony. The story takes hold of Anthony, a painter struggling to find new inspiration, and he heads to the old housing projects of Cabrini Green searching for answers.
DaCosta crafts an eerie cinematic world that is anchored by a deeply harrowing and sorrowful performance by AbdulMateen, who begins to occupy a space like Frankenstein’s monster, of this world and a monster within it, as he delves deeper and deeper into the Candyman legend.